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Storm hesitates for a moment, his eyes flicking to his phone on the desk before coming back to me. “Have you heard from Isla’s father since you returned to Chicago?”
“No. What does he have to do with anything?”
“Everett took it upon himself when we were advised of the Hayes brothers being in the city to check on the other people in Isla’s life. Both Edward and her friend Bree, are missing. Have been for a few weeks if the intel we have is anything to go off.”
I rub a hand down my face.
Fuck.
I should have followed up with Edward when he didn’t call me back, but I thought he was just ignoring me. We weren’tfriends anymore after all. We’re nothing to one another. Or I guess technically he’s my father-in-law, but if I ever dared to say that to him, I have a feeling I’d be leaving with a black eye.
“Is there any reason you can think of that they would both disappear without a word?” He asks.
“No. I called Edward last week, but I didn’t think much of him not responding. Isla has been trying to get in touch with both him and Bree for weeks, but she thought they were just moving on with their lives and I’ve been trying to distract her from it.”
Storm sighs and reaches for the whiskey, refilling both glasses. “Do you think this could be Spade’s way of drawing Isla out? Admitting the marriage is bullshit in exchange for her friend and father back?”
A growl tears its way up my throat, and before I realize what I’m doing, I pick up the tumbler and hurl it toward the wall, watching as the glass shatters across the carpet and whiskey coats the ivory walls. “My marriage is not bullshit,” I force through clenched teeth.
Storm places his glass down in front of him, completely unbothered by the mess I’ve just made in his office. But then it’s hardly the first time someone has broken something in here. It’s probably a weekly occurrence considering the tempers of the men in the family. “Not now. But it was to begin with, was it not?”
I give him a short nod, hating the idea that there was a time when I didn’t worship the ground Isla walks on, when I didn’t appreciate the angel that walked into my life with a light so bright she lit up my darkness.
“Exactly. As far as Spade is concerned, your marriage is a farce, and he has no reason to believe otherwise.”
The urge to throw the chair I’m sitting in and tear apart the entire office beats down on me, but I swallow it down.
I reach for my phone in my pocket and pull it out, hoping Isla may have replied to the text I sent her when I left the apartment. But there’s nothing. It’s unlike her not to reply to me.
I tap out a quick text to Antonio asking for an update and then place my phone on the desk. “Do the Hayes brothers have any ties in the city? Anyone we can lean on for information?”
Storm shakes his head. “They are aligned with the Russos but when I called Elijah earlier, he said he hadn’t heard from them in a while.”
I drop my elbows to my knees and bury my head in my hands. I don’t like this. Not being in control at the best of times is enough to drive me insane, but when it comes to my spitfire, it makes me damn near homicidal.
Both phones vibrate across the table at the same time, and my gaze shoots up to meet Storm’s.
“They’ve been spotted near your apartment building.”
I look down at my own phone, and the words of Antonio’s message will feature in my nightmares for the rest of my life.
Antonio: She’s gone.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
ISLA
Every move I make is shaky as I shove things into a backpack I found in the closet.
I’m not sure at what point I decided I was going along with Bryant’s ridiculous plan, but here I am, packing clothes for the next few days and trying to make sense of all the lies I’ve been fed.
Thinking back to my conversation with the Hayes brothers in the women’s bathroom is almost as comical as it was heartbreaking. Of all the places I could have had the rug pulled out from under me, it was certainly unique.
“What the hell are you all doing here?” I ask, dropping my bag to my feet. The three textbooks I packed in a hurry this morning are making the damn thing a hazard.
“We need to talk.” Bryant approaches me slowly. “And I need you not to freak out.”
“So you brought the brother that hates me and the one who has barely spoken a full sentence to me in the years I’ve known him?” I challenge. I have no idea what would make him think Kai and Kayden would help me from freaking out, but maybe he just never knew me as well as I thought he did.
